Sermon by Vicar Brett Wilson – Pentecost 9 – Proper 12 – 7/25/10
The readings are - Genesis 18:20-32, Psalm 138, Colossians 2:6-15, and Luke 11:1-13
“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
Can you picture yourself at the door? Knocking? Think with me about this image of prayer as knocking on God's door. Maybe you've come here today with something really on your heart, and you've praying desperately about it, knocking hard on that door, over and over. Maybe you've come here today feeling like you don't knock enough, or you don't really see a place for prayer in your day – you've knocked before, and the door didn't open.
It can be a hard image. I'll tell you flat out, I really struggle with these verses. When I read them, I think we imagine ourselves on the outside, of this front door, of a huge, fortified stone house. Perhaps it's a stormy night and the door is this imposing, solid wooden door. I knock and knock. I pray and pray. I pray for something, I bargain with God, I try every way possible to get in that door – I pray in different ways – I ring the doorbell, I shout, I knock on the windows, try the knocker. . .
It feels like this sometimes. And then we get frustrated – because – right here – it says, knock and the door will be opened for you. Which makes it sound like, pray, and everything will be opened, like a key in a lock, just the way we request it. These are not frivolous prayers, either. We pray for our family, our friends, for people's very lives. . . We pray for this specific door to open.
In our gospel reading, verse 9 reads -”I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will give up and give him whatever he needs.” So then we hear this and decide that alright, I'm just going to knock until I get an answer. So I put myself on a disciplined prayer regimen. I've seen bumper stickers with this mantra – pray until something happens – PUSH. It's not a bad idea. It's never a bad idea to pray. But when our prayers become dependent on that second part – so desperately longing for the “something happens” part. . . And you know, we feel like sometimes, this lets us down. Someone we're praying for dies, leaves us, things change, we feel like we failed. Then, this leads us to think of prayer as part of an if/then relationship, and we have to be careful how we imagine this door – how we interpret these texts – because then we hinge our whole relationship with God on results, on our desires, on an if/then relationship.
Jesus is not teaching us that prayer is an if/then contract – if you pray . . . then you get . . . No! That's not the way it works – it's about the relationship.
So when you consider this image of prayer as knocking, and asking and searching, remember, God has said to you - “I love you unconditionally, no matter what.” In Jesus who nails our sins to the cross, erases the record against us, God demonstrates once and for all this is not about mathematics. It's not about one prayer equals one gift. Because God loves you unconditionally, there is no more if . . . then relationship here. God does not play games, including this game we imagine about being outside in the cold, knocking with our prayers.
Prayer is about relationship. God has said “I love you unconditionally,” and all we can do is respond, relating to God in prayer, acknowledging the deepest relationship we have, living out that relationship in prayer.
If we think of this parable Jesus tells about knocking on the door in the context of the whole passage, we get a better sense of the real picture here. Let me offer you another image of what it means to be in relationship with God and this image of praying as knocking.
First of all, erase the image of the front door. It's not the front door Jesus is saying to knock at in verse 9. It cannot be. Because, you're already in the door. The prayer that Jesus teaches us, reminds us that when we pray we don't knock on the front door, out in the cold, because of who God is. Who is God here? Of course – it's this easy – we've said all our lives. God is our father. So we are not knocking at the front door for God – because we live under his roof. You're not at the front door knocking in the cold with your prayers because you've already been let in. This is your father's house. And Jesus said, “John 14:2-3 In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” Because of Jesus, you have a permanent place there in the father's house, the father that loves you unconditionally.
So when you knock, when you pray, know that you're already in, and you're at home. This is your heavenly father's house, who made you and takes your prayers seriously. Many times in the bible, like Abraham persuading God on behalf of the people of Sodom, people are able to call in God's action into a situation, and change the course, even change God's mind.
It doesn't matter how you knock in your prayers, but it's about the relationship. And the relationship, from our side, is described in the parable as one of “persistence.” But I have to tell you, language nerd that I am, that “persistence” is a bad translation. Jesus describes our prayer life not so much as persistent, but rather the word means “shameless.” Shameless! What would it look like to pray shamelessly?
We get a good idea of what shamelessness looks like in Abraham approaching and talking God down in our first reading. We acknowledge, like Abraham, that we are just dust and ashes, just children, but in prayer you can approach God without shame, like Abraham, like a shameless child. Because especially at certain ages, usually before the teenage self-consciousness sets in, children are shameless – they'll run up, blurt out whatever's on their minds, and we are, after all, God's children.
So in the end, interpreting Jesus' teaching on prayer here gives quite a different image than where we started. You are not out in the cold standing at the front door but inside. You are not knocking and praying hoping you get it right, requesting something from a temperamental friend who may or may not get up and help. This is your parent. This is God the parent who made you and knows how to give you good gifts even so much more than even the most well-intentioned earthly parent. Jesus teaches you to pray shamelessly.
Reflecting on all these together gave me a completely new image for these verses. Jesus is not teaching prayer as door-knocking and a formula for every door, every desire we have to be opened. Jesus teaches here that you are God's child, inside your father's house. And because you are a child, you pray to your God shamelessly. Prayer is like being the five year old child who has just discovered something amazing and shamelessly runs in, interrupts the parents' conversation and shares their hopes, excitement, praise. You can shamelessly share your joy with God in prayer – of a little triumph at work, a new level to a relationship, or a new opportunity. Prayer is also like being the child who wakes, fearful and sweating from a nightmare, and finding yourself in the father's house, only barely knocks, and bursts in to the parent's, shamelessly, to come to the one who loves you unconditionally with all your fears, frustration, and sadness. Without fear, shame, or self-consciousness, you can share your longings, your sadness, your anger with God – share frustrations over things like your finances, or changed relationships, or grief . . . Our father, who art in heaven, who is here now, teaches you to pray that you can come to God shamelessly, at all times, for all things. Even in the Lord's prayer, which some might think is just words because it is so well-known, there is this shameless expression of a relationship. When you pray, the Lord's prayer or any prayer, consider it as shameless and full of love and faith as a five year old, bursting in to the room of the parent, who will listen, take you seriously, but most of all, hold you, and promise that everything will be alright. And it will. For Jesus has prepared a room for you in the Father's house, when Jesus says, “For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened,” this is what he means – that in the end, you have a place eternally. It's shameless love, and you pray with the confidence that you will rest in the our father's house forever. Amen.
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